Editor's Message
by Ruth Sternberg, NCOPE, NCCSC – NRWA Newsletter Editor
Colleagues,
Our work is never just about producing a strong resume or LinkedIn profile. We help clients make sense of what is happening in their careers, weigh difficult choices, and move forward when uncertainty, fear, or too many options have left them feeling stuck.
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This edition explores that broader responsibility. Ellen Steverson and Tom Powner introduce a career-management model designed to help people advance in their careers and make more deliberate decisions. We also examine the increasingly sophisticated scams confronting job seekers and the simple verification habits that can help protect our clients before they share sensitive information or place their trust in the wrong person.
As our profession evolves, our own learning must continue as well. Upcoming webinars and the NRWA Master Class series offer opportunities to expand our expertise, strengthen our businesses, and respond thoughtfully to changes in technology and client expectations. You will also find another helpful Grammar Matters lesson. Don’t forget to check out our members’ latest success stories! (Have you shared yours?) Each contribution reflects something important about this community: We continue to learn from one another so that we can serve our clients with greater knowledge, judgment, and care.
Here’s to your professional growth.
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Your Guide to This Issue:
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Career Management is Our Real Job Description
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By Ellen Steverson, NCRW, NCOPE, and Tom Powner, NCOPE
A client calls and starts with:
“I need a resume for a promotion, and if I don’t get it, I’m moving on, so I need a resume.”
“I see no future here and feel more stuck than ever. Do you do resumes?”
“Everyone tells me to update my resume, but I don’t even know what I’m updating it for.”
There is no single word for all the concerns, worries, and feelings behind calls like these. So, we named that state. |
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It is the moment people feel something, such as fear, anxiety, stress, even joy, about their careers, and that feeling makes them pause and think, “What’s next?” We call it Career Gridlock™.
For more than 15 years, we have helped thousands of clients move beyond career gridlock. We coach them to manage their careers more intentionally to make sound decisions, understand the business behind their work, and succeed in their current roles or job searches.
Then life happens. Circumstances change, new questions emerge, and career gridlock return, often at a different stage and for different reasons. When clients find themselves asking, “What now?” they come back to us, bringing the tools and insights they gained from our earlier work.
As the market has shifted toward more global competition, more frequent layoffs, and more negative noise online, we decided it was time to share our tools more widely, including with practitioners and organizations. That is why we wrote the forthcoming book, Working to Winning: The Power of Knowing What Matters, for anyone navigating their career, whether on their own or in partnership with a career-management expert who can guide them.
The Forge4ward Career Management Model™ at the center of the book has four components: Discover Yourself, Expand Horizons, Forge Relations, and Drive Strategy, holding eight elements of tools and strategies that turn insight into repeatable action. Career Gridlock shows up many times in a career, and this framework provides a repeatable way to return to tools and strategies without starting from zero each time.
Our proprietary decision-making tool, the Diamond Checkpoint™, helps people pause, reflect on what matters most right now, and move forward. People rarely lack information when facing a career decision. They lack a repeatable process for weighing it, so they freeze, default to the safest option, or decide by whichever emotion is loudest that day. Too many options degrade decision quality due to choice overload, and without structure, people land on the default path.
The Diamond Checkpoint imposes decision structure: define what matters, weigh options against that instead of noise or fear, then commit to take action. That is what separates a decision from a spiral. We use it to sharpen decision-making, build business fluency, target new skills, guide networking, and structure company research.
These tools are trademarked and built for individual use in the book. We are also developing licensing so practitioners, coaches, and organizations can bring Forge4ward directly to the people they serve.
If career management piques your interest, we invite you to a “meet the authors” webinar on September 22 at 12:00 p.m., ET. Register here to join us, as we’d love to talk and share more.
Working to Winning: The Power of Knowing What Matters is scheduled for release in September. Join our launch list.
Ellen and Tom are longtime NRWA members who have delivered numerous educational webinars for the NRWA, spoken at multiple conferences, and created and facilitated courses for the resume-writing and career-services community. Tom developed and leads the Nationally Certified Online Profile Expert (NCOPE) certification program.
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Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities |
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Want to find out more about writing a book based on your expertise?
Join the NRWA for a webinar at 12:30 p.m. September 18 with Gillian Whitney. She is a business book coach, author marketing strategist, six-time published author, and host of the Easy Peasy Books Podcast, where she covers writing, publishing, and marketing books. Members and nonmembers can register here.
When you join the NRWA, you can access our webinars at no extra charge! |
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Level Up Your Career and Your Business with the Master Class Series
In a previous newsletter, we shared details about our new master class series, and we want to make sure you don't miss it.
Running a successful career-services business today demands more than writing and coaching expertise. We know the career services industry is changing faster than ever. New technologies, evolving client expectations, and emerging business trends are creating exciting opportunities for professionals who are ready to grow.
That's why the NRWA is proud to introduce the Master Class Series to help you sharpen your skills, strengthen your business, and stay ahead of the competition.
Whether you're a career-services professional, resume writer, career coach, independent practitioner, solopreneur or small-business owner, or a professional eager to expand your expertise, you will find this series delivers practical, real-world strategies you can put to work immediately.
Discover innovative technologies, improve your business operations, enhance your client experience, and gain the confidence to grow a thriving, future-ready practice. Each session is designed to provide actionable insights that lead to measurable results.
Don't miss this opportunity to invest in yourself and your business. Explore the 2026 NRWA Master Class series using the links below and take the next step in your professional journey!
This series is open to NRWA members and nonmembers. Members receive discounted registration as well as access to many other membership-only benefits. Consider joining the NRWA today! |
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Beyond Fake Job Postings:
What We Can Do to Help Clients Outsmart Today's Hiring Scams Compiled and Edited by Ruth Sternberg (NCOPE, NCCSC) and Amanda Miller
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The job search has become a minefield. Clients no longer just wonder whether they're qualified; they wonder whether the opportunity itself is real.
A recent Monster survey found that 95% of respondents had encountered what they believed was a suspicious job opportunity, while nearly half said they now approach recruiter outreach with skepticism. Although the survey isn't representative of all job seekers, it highlights a growing reality: fraud has become part of today's hiring landscape.
NRWA members have seen this firsthand. We recently shared the story of member Wendi Weiner, whose professional identity was stolen and used by scammers, while educator Tom Powner has helped educate members on recognizing common warning signs. His article can be found in the NRWA’s business resources section.
But today's scams extend far beyond fake job postings.
According to Mark Anthony Dyson's Job Scam Report, scammers increasingly imitate legitimate hiring processes, from recruiter outreach and interviews to onboarding paperwork and background checks. Rather than asking for money immediately, they build credibility before requesting personal information, directing candidates to purchase equipment or involving them in fraudulent financial transactions.
Mark, along with resources provided by organizations, including the Federal Trade Commission, FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, and Identity Theft Resource Center, recommends steps to help our clients build simple verification habits before they become victims.
Five Safety Rules Every Job Seeker Should Follow
Verify the opportunity independently. Encourage clients to locate the position on the employer's official careers page instead of relying on links provided in emails or messages. Compare the title, location, and job description. Verify the recruiter through another channel. A LinkedIn profile is no longer enough. Clients should independently locate the company's contact information, confirm the recruiter works there, and verify they're hiring for that specific position. Never rely solely on contact information provided by the recruiter. Recognize what legitimate hiring looks like. Caution is warranted when offers arrive without meaningful interviews, communication occurs only through text or messaging apps, the process moves unusually fast, or candidates are asked for sensitive information before receiving a verified offer. Establish firm boundaries. Legitimate employers don't require candidates to pay for jobs, purchase equipment from designated vendors, deposit checks and forward money, buy cryptocurrency, or move funds through personal bank accounts. As the FTC puts it: Never pay to get paid. For technical professionals, add one more rule: Never run recruiter-supplied code or install unfamiliar software without independently verifying its legitimacy. Pause before onboarding. Before submitting tax forms, banking information, or identification, clients should confirm five things: the company exists, the job exists, the recruiter exists, the recruiter is who they claim to be, and the offer came through official company channels.
Just as importantly, encourage clients to reach out before responding to anything suspicious. A legitimate recruiter won't object to a candidate taking time to verify an opportunity. A scammer often will.
The biggest lesson we can teach isn't constant suspicion; it's consistent verification. When clients have a simple process they follow every time, they're far less likely to become victims, even when excitement over a promising opportunity clouds their judgment.
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Here are some useful grammar tips from Donna Tucker.
Adjectives Basic rule: When using two or more descriptive adjectives before a noun, they should generally follow this order:
- Quantity or number (how many?)
- Opinion (what do you think of it? e.g., beautiful, ugly, lovely)
- Size (big, small, tall)
- Age (old, young, new)
- Shape (round, square, long)
- Color (red, blue, green)
- Origin (where’s it from? French, American, Japanese)
- Material (what’s it made of? wooden, silk, plastic)
- Purpose or qualifier (what’s it for? sleeping [as in sleeping bag], wedding [as in wedding dress])
Example:
“Three lovely small old round blue Italian silk evening bags.”
This order feels “right” to native speakers; changing it sounds off:
“Blue small Italian silk three evening lovely round old bags” sounds wrong.
Quick tip:
You rarely need more than two or three adjectives in a row, but when you do, this order keeps your writing smooth and natural. |
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Alison King presented a conference session on Own Your Career: Personal Branding for Library Professionals to an overflow audience at the Massachusetts Library Association annual conference in May. It was the only session purely focused on attendees’ career development.
Alison is a career-management coach who works specifically with librarians who want to move up in the field or are seeking a new career.
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Share Your Milestone We want to hear from you! |
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Click here to fill out the form and get a mention in an upcoming issue of our monthly newsletter, The Watercooler. |
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The NRWA offers live and on-demand webinars, a self-paced Resume Writing 101 course, and more opportunities for learning throughout the year. |
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